#WeAreGreenKey: Spotlight on Meryl Schoen

With a grasp of the fundamental concept of Marketing Strategy, let’s explore its advantages in more detail and uncover the steps to effectively craft one.

Benefits of Marketing Strategies

• Clear Direction: A well-defined marketing strategy provides a clear roadmap for achieving business objectives. It aligns marketing efforts with overall goals, ensuring that every action contributes to the company’s success.
• Customer Engagement and Loyalty: A strategic approach to marketing fosters deeper connections with customers. By understanding their needs and preferences, companies can tailor messages and experiences that resonate with their audience, leading to increased engagement and loyalty.

Marketing Stratego also highlights a few benefits including:

• “Increased Brand Awareness: A strong marketing strategy helps increase brand awareness by promoting the business’s products or services to the target audience. This, in turn, leads to more recognition and recall of the brand, which ultimately leads to more sales and customer loyalty.”
• “Increased Sales and Revenue: A well-designed marketing strategy leads to increased sales and revenue by attracting more customers to the business and increasing their willingness to purchase. This can be achieved through effective targeting, promotions, and other marketing efforts.”
• “Better Customer Targeting: A good marketing strategy helps businesses understand their target audience and create campaigns that are relevant to them. This leads to more effective and efficient marketing, as businesses are able to reach their target customers more effectively and achieve better results.”
• “Competitive Advantage: A strong marketing strategy can give a business a competitive advantage by differentiating it from its competitors. By creating unique and effective campaigns, businesses can stand out in their market and attract more customers.”
• ‘Improved Lead Generation: A good marketing strategy helps businesses generate more leads by promoting the business’s products or services to the target audience. This leads to more opportunities for businesses to convert those leads into customers and increase their revenue.”
• “Improved Brand Image and Reputation: A well-designed marketing strategy helps improve a business’s brand image and reputation by creating positive associations with the brand. This, in turn, leads to increased customer loyalty, as customers are more likely to do business with a brand they view positively.”
• “Increased Market Share: A strong marketing strategy helps businesses increase their market share by attracting more customers and retaining existing ones. This, in turn, leads to increased revenue and growth for the business.”
• “More Effective Use of Resources: A good marketing strategy helps businesses make the most of their marketing budget and resources. By identifying the most effective channels and campaigns, businesses can maximize their return on investment and achieve better results.”
• “Better Return on Investment (ROI): A well-designed marketing strategy helps businesses achieve a better return on investment by increasing sales and revenue and maximizing the use of resources. This, in turn, leads to increased profitability and growth for the business.”

Now that we’ve highlighted the benefits of a marketing strategy, lets’ explore the process of creating an effective one.

According to Hubspot.com, here are the eight steps a company should take during the marketing strategy process:

• Conduct market research: “…you need to gather useful data for making informed decisions. Market research is like playing detective, but instead of solving crimes, you’re uncovering juicy details about your customers. Market research will help your businesses make data-driven decisions for your marketing strategy. It also makes it easier to understand your target market, find gaps, and make the most of your resources.”
• “Define your goals: What do you want to achieve through your marketing efforts? Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or diversifying your customer base, well-defined goals will guide your marketing strategy.”
• “Identify your target audience and create buyer personas: To create an effective marketing strategy, you need to understand who your ideal customers are. Take a look at your market research to understand your target audience and market landscape. Accurate customer data is especially important for this step…”
• “Conduct competitive analysis: To begin your competitive analysis, start with your top competitors. Reviewing their websites, content, ads, and pricing can help you understand how to differentiate your brand. It’s also a useful way to find opportunities for growth.”
• “Develop key messaging”: Craft compelling massages and creative assets that effectively communicate your value proposition and resonate with your audience. Ensure consistency in messaging across all channels to build brand recognition and trust.
• “Choose your marketing channels: You know what you have to say, now decide on the best marketing channels for your message. Your top goal for this stage of your strategy is to align your channel choices with your target persona’s media consumption habits. Start with media channels you’re already using. Then, consider a mix of traditional and digital channels such as social media, TV, email marketing, podcast ads, SEO, content marketing, and influencer partnerships. To streamline this process, think of your assets in three categories — paid, owned, and earned media.”
• “Create, track, and analyze KPIs: At this stage, you’ll shift from marketing detective to numbers nerd. With a little planning and prep, your analytics can unveil the mysteries of marketing performance and unlock super insights. Review your strategy and choose measurable KPIs to track the effectiveness of your strategy. Create a system that works for your team to collect and measure your data.”
• “Present your marketing strategy: A finished marketing strategy will pull together the sections and components above. It may also include: Executive Summary, Brand Identity, and a Marketing Plan and Tactics”